Pop band Abba's old BMW auctioned off for near-record price

Posted Tuesday afternoon

Scott Pattenden (copyright 2017)/courtesy RM Sotheby's(NEW YORK) -- Mamma Mia! That’s some price for a 41-year-old, cassette-playing BMW once used by Swedish band Abba, one of the world’s most successful pop groups of all time.

The stylish 1977 BMW 633, with nearly 125,000 miles behind it, sold at auction in Paris by RM Sotheby’s for about $42,500, nearly a record for that particular model, according to car specialist Felix Archer of RM Sotheby’s.

“An equivalent of this car, with the same mileage of 200,000 kilometers and in such good condition, but without Abba attached to It, would sell for between [roughly $12,400 and $18.600],” he told ABC News. “Abba’s influence is bigger than you can imagine.”

Abba -- which turned out hits like “Dancing Queen,” “Chiquitita” and the iconic “Mamma Mia!” -- used the Polaris silver BMW on European tours from 1978 to 1980 and as a discrete everyday car for members Bjorn Ulvaeus or Benny Andersson. They sold it in 1980, according to RM Sotheby’s.

Two then-married couples -- Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog, and Andersson and Frida Lyngstad -- formed the quartet in the early-1970s, producing disco-era Swedish-made, English-language pop songs.

The car, with leather seats and electric windows, sold last week with copies of the original documents signed by Ulvaeus and Andersson.